Vicky Pryce trial

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Vicky Price told the court that she decided not to deal with the Sunday Times again after feeling "manipulated" by the article:

I had actually been quite upset about the front page and also in the end the article coming out because clearly there was already a lot of interest from the press and I felt actually pretty bad and really not happy with having been involved in any of this.

Mostly I felt I wished really to have nothing to do with it if I could and felt quite ashamed and upset.

I was a bit shocked and horrified and of course started worrying very significantly about the whole process that led to this article. So in many ways I just wanted to turn the clock back and not have anything to do with it.

I was quite shocked about the way that the information had come out and I was beginning to feel that actually I had been perhaps manipulated in a way and that things had probably been pushed too far.

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Vicky Pryce told Southwark Crown Court that Chris Huhne made her take the speeding points in a "fait accompli" in 2003. She first revealed the offence to Sunday Times Political Editor Isabel Oakeshott in March 2011.

Pryce told the court that the revelation got Ms Oakeshott "excited" as she planned how to run the story in the newspaper. The pair agreed that the claims would be made through an interview with Pryce, and an agreement was put in place in a bid to protect her.

But Pryce told the court she was shocked to see the story on the front page, and that it included details which could reveal her as the person who took the points.

Vicky Pryce told a court today she was was shocked and horrified, and "wanted to turn the clock back", when the story about Chris Huhne getting someone to take his speeding points appeared in the headlines.

Vicky Pryce Credit: PA Wire

The ex-wife of the former Cabinet minister said she felt "ashamed and upset" when the story appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times in May 2011, and wanted nothing more to do with it.

It later emerged that it was Pryce who had taken the points. Huhne finally admitted lying about the matter this week, but his former wife denies perverting the course of justice, claiming marital coercion.

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Vicky Pryce, appearing for the second day of her trial at Southwark Crown Court. Credit: ITV News

Vicky Pryce has said Chris Huhne refused to step down from office over his affair because "(late Labour minister) Robin Cook didn't have to".

After confessing, she said Huhne told her he had 20 minutes to write a statement, then left her and her son at the house to go to the gym.

"At no time was there an apology or any concern about what it would mean for us," she told Southwark Crown Court. "He ran out, with us following behind, and said, 'and don't talk to the papers'. We were left with no information about the whole business, and then newspapers descended upon us."

Pryce, 60, also told of the moment Huhne, her husband of more than 25 years, told her during half time of a World Cup football match that he had been having a year-and-a-half affair with a woman she knew as a lesbian. She told the court:

He said, 'I have something to tell you. A newspaper has caught me with a mistress and I have to write a note to say that we are separating', or words to that effect. ... I was really shocked.

... And then I asked who it was, and he said Carina (Trimingham). You have to forgive me, I have absolutely nothing against gay people, but I knew Carina as a lesbian. She had come to the house, she was introduced to me as a lesbian always and had a civil partner, a lady. So I said, 'Carina', and I have to say I just couldn't take it seriously. In fact I laughed, because it seemed so preposterous.

Phone conversations in which Vicky Pryce and Chris Huhne discuss the newspaper reports of the speeding points swap, during which he emphatically denies getting her to accept the penalty, have been played to the jury at Southwark Crown Court.

Former Cabinet minister Huhne pleaded guilty on Monday to perverting the course of justice over claims Pryce took speeding points for him a decade ago, while announcing his resignation as an MP.

Vicky Pryce has told Southwark Crown Court she had "absolutely no choice" but to take Chris Huhne's speeding points after "being worn down over a period of time" by her then-husband.

She said she "exploded" when realising she had been nominated as the driver of the vehicle and initially refused to sign the form, until Huhne brought the matter up a few days later.

She told Southwark Crown Court:

My husband was standing by the form which actually I had just left and abandoned myself on the table, maybe a couple of days earlier, with a pen in his hand, saying 'You have absolutely got to sign that. If you don't, the implications will be considerable' ... 'It's ridiculous you're not signing it, just sign here'.

Pryce said her name was already filled in and she just had to sign at the bottom. She told the jury:

I had no choice at the time because he was standing there saying 'This is it, this is the nomination form, you have got to sign this now'. I looked at this and realised I had absolutely no choice. I was already nominated. It looked like a complete fait accompli for me and for him. I had been worn down over a period of time and it looked to me like it was the only thing I could possibly do. It didn't look to me like I had any choice at all in the matter so I took this pen and signed, protesting all the time, but I did it.